Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Spread the Words Through Viral Marketing

Viral marketing involves a wide range of promotional activities that motivate people to pass along a marketing message to other individuals through any means of communication. Viral marketing can spread to millions in just seconds with the use of internet, hence the term “Viral”.
There are two common components of a viral marketing campaign. The first is digital video production. Viral videos are quite often short to ensure high viewership and immediately entertaining for the purpose of distribution. It can be based on existing videos in television, short clips from a mixture of sources or an intended or unintended video files with high entertainment value. Most use short video clips that are posted in social networking sites and business sites. Viral videos are short, novel, humorous and informative. It can run for just 30 seconds (even less in fact!) and can attract viewers not just to the video itself but to the services or products the video might market.
The second most common component of viral marketing is e-mail campaign. An e-mail is distributed to recipients containing some information, it may be of a marketing content or not, but generally it is aimed at encouraging the recipient to pass the information to a friend. In the e-mail, a viral video, link or a picture may be attached.
Businesses use an e-mail campaign when they like to invite people to attend product launchings or promotional events. A viral e-mail contains texts that aim to encourage the recipient to forward the e-mail to his contacts.
Other components include Short Message Service, blogging, social media interactivity, television, radio, polling services, and outbound and inbound call center services.
Effective viral marketing campaigns are based on three principles: social profile gathering, proximity market analysis and real-time key word density analysis. Companies that offer viral marketing service, just like New Media Services, use these three in advertising models to math a business with their target customers.
Viral marketing such as New Media Services’ “Forward Marketing” work by producing a viral video, e-mail or a blog depending on the best way to catch customers’ attention. Producers of viral videos think of how to present the product in the most novel way. Viral videos consist of simple information that reflects the services offered by the business, the prominent element is usually just the logo.
If the business does not have a website to post the videos, there are alternative options available such as influential websites like Youtube and Facebook. In e-mail campaigning, a list of recipients is prepared ahead of time. Live operators publish the video or send the e-mail to recipients, or manually call customers to deliver the message. Live operators may use blogging and other tools to increase the visibility of the marketing message.
When a viewer watches the video, he may also consider downloading it and storing it in his mobile device. Because viral videos are totally entertaining and easily gain publicity, viewers will surely forward the video to others. Viral e-mails, SMS messages and blogs are usually forwarded to peers.
The key target in the viral marketing process is “the buzz” wherein people talk about the video to their network of family, friends, acquaintances and often, random people. The initial production cost of the video is more often than not, the only expense; as advertising the product or service is done by the very same target market. Essentially, the entire job of business networking is done by people who find the viral campaign entertaining.
Viral videos and e-mails set the topic of conversations among groups. Most often, influential people recommend a product according to what they see in videos sent to them. They unconsciously utter the business’ name. Some result in the advantage of “perceptual value” wherein the viral marketing campaign creates good perceptions about the business that in turn, help build a solid business image.
The bottom-line of viral marketing is “word of mouth” promotion. Undoubtedly, “word of mouth” is the most powerful marketing tool.